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James Sutherland-Smith

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Epitaph for a piano

Let us not dwell on the known life;
How, as in any biopic,
The conservative impresario
Was not impressed by her habit
Of shading loudness on single notes.

Nor let us recapitulate
How it took two others, one dying
Of cholera, the other deaf
To realise her unique gifts.
Nor will we be coy about love affairs
With various Central Europeans.

Nor draw a moral from the scandal
Of her decline when an American
Decked her private parts with screws,
Razor blades and pieces of paper
Then recorded the results on tape
Or when he appeared on stage
And sat down at her with his hands folded
For thirty minutes doing nothing.

Rather let us indulge in gossip
Whispering that perhaps something
With so much ivory might have been
At least half-African especially
As she seemed happiest in ragtime
Or bending notes in the blues.

Let us think of her passing
As a dissolution into elements.
Brass and steel oxidise into ore.
Mahogony, walnut, rosewood
Become a forest where elephants stand up
And amble away, snorting to a pool
Which gleams black and white when darkness, silence fall.

It’s better to imagine this
Than an oaf with a sledgehammer
Setting a world record for piano-smashing
In four minutes thirty-seven seconds flat.



Julia Abell - illustration

Illustration by Julia Abell


Page(s) 24-25

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